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SPORTS: Lance Armstrong miracle started here…or did it?

It is 10 a.m. on July 24 and, from several thousand miles and an ocean away, it is being reported that Lance Armstrong has, indeed, won his seventh consecutive-and last-Tour de France. I pick up the telephone and dial Dr. Lawrence Einhorn at his home here in Indianapolis. “What a way to go out,” says the doctor, the pleasure obvious in his voice. “And it still gives me goose bumps.” What a championship pairing: Lance Armstrong, cancer survivor. Lawrence Einhorn,…

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Baby doctors ready to bolt: Clarian North’s new north-side med center to lure business from St. Vincent, Community

Storm clouds are gathering to the north as St. Vincent Health applies the last coat of polish to its $19 million Women’s Hospital renovation. The Indianapolis hospital will lose an obstetrician-gynecology group that delivers as many as 1,440 babies a year shortly after it completes its expansion in September. The 10 doctors of Women’s Health Alliance plan to move offices and shift 80 percent of their practice to a new competitor, Clarian North Medical Center, a $285 million project scheduled…

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Counties, cities welcome food/beverage tax: Suburbs see extra funds as way to balance budgets

Several suburban cities and counties that have approved new food and beverage taxes view the windfall as a panacea for their budget woes. Six of the seven counties surrounding Marion County, excluding Morgan, have OK’d the 1-percent surcharge to help fund a new stadium for the Indianapolis Colts and Indiana Convention Center expansion. Morgan County councilors turned down the measure at a June meeting. The legislation, approved during the past session, directs counties to contribute half the food and beverage…

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Manufacturers struggle with China’s risk, opportunity: Currency valuation one of many competitive issues

Eighteen months ago, 110 people worked for Swiss Plywood Co., a Tell City-based cabinet-maker in business since 1945. The average tenure was 17 years. Today, only 65 employees are left at the controls of Swiss Plywood’s machines. Chairman Bill Borders blames China. “We’ve weathered storms over the years,” Borders said. “But nothing approaching this.” Manufacturers in Indiana and across the nation have long complained about what they call Chinese currency manipulation. It’s one of a litany of grumbles about Chinese…

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EYE ON THE PIE: Brothers set example for today’s execs

Most of us know the fabled heroes of Bean Town. They include the Adams cousins (John and Sam). Paul Revere. The Kennedy brothers (John, Robert and Edward). Ted Williams, Carl Yazstremski, Bobby Orr, Bob Cousey, Bill Russell, Larry Bird and Tom Brady. Yet Boston’s most significant business heroes are not well-known today, at a time when their example could be most useful. Two brothers, Edward and Lincoln Filene, inherited their father’s department store in 1890. They spent the rest of…

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Insurers look to make uncommon comeback: Pafco, Superior hope to leave rehabilitation this year

Only the hum of central air-conditioning broke the silence when Doug Symons recently led a quick tour of the Indianapolis office where his Superior Insurance Group once employed about 180 people. Rows of gray cubicles sat empty. Boxes filled with old claims and underwriting files lined the aisles. “This,” Symons said as he waved his arms around, “is what an empty office looks like waiting to be filled.” Those bare cubicles could fill up with dozens of new employees and…

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Auto auction board hikes own pay: Adesa Inc. also sent executive packing with full-sized severance

Vehicle auction giant Adesa Inc., which already pays one of the richest sums to its directors of any local company, has jacked up its annual board retainer 50 percent. Meanwhile, the Carmel-based company also has disclosed details of a severance package it paid to Executive Vice President James P. Hallett worth more than $1.3 million, not including the value of his stock options. Both events were disclosed in documents filed recently with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The eight-person board…

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Firm plans to get personal with clients’ home pages: Former gubernatorial candidate runs Web business

Developing an Internet home page that gives users more options for content than what behemoths such as America Online and Yahoo! offer through their syndicated selections has become the ambition of George Witwer. The 46-year-old Bluffton native, who once aspired to be Indiana governor, launched the northwest-side Humanizing Technologies in January 2000. With much of the product’s research and development in the can, the venture is close to weaning itself from investors and, for the first time, could turn a…

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Court files grow thick against Guidant: Shareholders, patients, employees air their grievances

“Attention, patients with Guidant heart defibrillators,” the announcer’s voice booms as the television commercial begins. Nearly 50,000 of the devices were recalled June 17, and people using one may be at risk, according to the ad, which has run in Tennessee, Kentucky and central Indiana so far. It ends by urging viewers to call the Becker Law Office in Louisville for a free consultation. That ad could spawn at least 10 wrongful-death lawsuits, according to Gregory Bubalo, a Louisville-based lawyer…

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Degree combines medicine, business: IU grads put in 5 years to earn combo MD/MBA

Tell people you have your MD and they’ll likely be impressed. Tell them you also have an MBA-well, now you’re just showing off. For four recent Indiana University graduates, however, impressing others had nothing to do with their decision to pursue simultaneous medical and business degrees. It’s all about making their way in the increasingly complicated field of health care, where being a good doctor is about more than having the highest grades in medical school. The four students received…

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Employers promoting fitness: To battle steep insurance costs, businesses help employees get healthier

Wearing a pedometer, Kelly Dircksen treads 2,000 or so steps a day at the office, racking up her highest counts in her treks to the photocopier. Her 2-1/2-mile daily goal entails after-work walks, as well. The 34-year-old quoting specialist said her company pays 50 percent of any fitness-related costs for her and her family, including a Weight Watchers program, running shoes for her kids, and the entry fee for her son’s marathon. “I’m definitely healthier,” said Dircksen, who celebrates incremental…

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New public auto-loan firm in works: White River to buy failed Union Acceptance

A new public company is rising from the ashes of Union Acceptance Corp., the failed east-side car-financing company, and is preparing to raise $35 million through a stock offering. White River Capital Inc., which will operate from UAC’s former headquarters on North Shadeland Avenue, has agreed to buy out UAC’s shareholders for $3.1 million in stock and to buy Virginiabased auto lender Coastal Credit LLC for $50 million in cash. “It’s a tough industry, a hypercompetitive industry,” White River President…

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Conseco hopes to receive crucial upgrade: Ratings firm A.M. Best Co. may make decision soon

The holiday season may arrive a few months early for Conseco Inc. if its subsidiaries receive the ratings upgrade that has topped their wish lists since their parent emerged from bankruptcy. A.M. Best Co. plans to complete a Conseco review this summer, and it probably will deliver the gift of good news afterward, according to some analysts who cover the Carmel-based holding company. New Jersey-based Best currently rates the financial strength of Conseco’s core subsidiaries at a B++ level, one…

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NOTIONS: Will you try to transform or get stuck with status quo?

It’s 4 a.m. I’m supposed to be writing by now, knitting you a tale about transformation. But the notions have yet to coalesce. So I lie in bed, watching through my bay window as a storm rolls through, igniting the sky with flashes of light. It’s 4:27 a.m. I awaken again and flip on the TV, the sound muted so as not to disturb my son’s slumber in the next room. The channel I was watching last night now shows…

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Youth sports get break: New law could cut Worker’s Comp premiums dramatically

State lawmakers scored a goal for youth sports this spring when they approved a bill that could save some clubs thousands
of dollars in present or future insurance premiums. Starting July 1, not-for-profits that have employees and pay youth coaches
part time under an independent contractor arrangement will not have to provide Worker’s Compensation benefits for those coaches.
State Sen. Murray Clark, R-Indianapolis, said he had travel teams or clubs in sports like soccer, volleyball or baseball in
mind when…

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Cab drivers drive down complaints: Service may have improved after city toughened rules

But much of the evidence is anecdotal, as city officials said they do not have complete complaint records for the periods just before and after the City-County Council imposed tougher regulations in 2002. One key problem addressed by those reforms seems to have diminished-drivers taking passengers to the wrong address. The city received only two such complaints in the last 1-1/2 years, according to records kept by the City Controller’s Office. That had been a commonly reported problem in the…

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BULLS & BEARS: Investors should run from variable annuity plan offers

There are many ways to invest your money in the stock market and no shortage of convincing salespeople preaching the best way to do it. The “can’t-beat’e m- s o – j o i n – ‘e m ” crowd thinks index funds are the way to go. Some think actively managed mutual funds are best, while others go for individual stocks. All the above ways have merit, pluses and minuses, and different levels of involvement from you, the investor….

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Clinic predicts Hamilton County will be fertile ground: Doctors relocate reproductive practice to growing area

Surgery centers and a heart hospital are among a host of health care facilities that have risen in burgeoning north-suburban Hamilton County in recent years. Now, a new fertility clinic could contribute to the population surge by helping couples conceive children. The 6,400-square-foot Follas Center for Reproductive Medicine opened late last month on East 146th Street in Noblesville in a collaboration between several Indianapolis reproductive medicine innovators. The center is a partnership between Dr. David McLaughlin, a local pioneer of…

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Global mission: destroy, conquer: New law good news for shredding firm

Indianapolis-based Global Shred Inc. plans to use a new federal rule that forces companies to destroy more documents as a springboard to expand into other states. The document-destruction provision of The Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction Act of 2003 went into effect June 1, requiring all businesses to shred, burn or pulverize credit and consumer reports. While many mom-and-pop shredding shops in the highly fragmented industry look to fortify their local position, Global Shred founder and owner David Kantor thinks…

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Precedent plans spec office: Building signals improvement in north-suburban market

The Precedent Cos. is preparing to build a 100,000-square-foot office building in its namesake office park near 96th Street and Keystone Avenue, several local real estate experts said, further evidence of the north-suburban market’s recovery. The building would mark the first new speculative office construction in the park since the mid-1990s, just before Indianapolis-based Precedent sold the park’s 19 buildings with 1.1 million square feet of office space to Philadelphia-based Berwind Property Group Inc. in 1998. That sale didn’t include…

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